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Many years ago, long enough that neither men can remember exactly when, a young horse trainer and a rider lived in the same apartment building in San Mateo. The two worked out of nearby Bay Meadows Racetrack and sparked a casual friendship. Both had come up, as Art Sherman, the rider, described it, "the hard way." Sherman slept in a boxcar en route to Churchill Downs in 1955 with the eventual Kentucky Derby winner, Swaps, for whom he was the exercise rider. The other man, Jerry Hollendorfer, worked first as a groom and then as a trainer who logged long hours and seemed to devote his entire self to his horses. When Sherman became a trainer in 1976, he grew to admire...

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Many years ago, long enough that neither men can remember exactly when, a young horse trainer and a rider lived in the same apartment building in San Mateo.
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Breathe easy, horse racing fans. California Chrome will be allowed to wear a nasal strip at the Belmont Stakes on June 7.
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